


The Bear and the Maiden Fair

by paradiamond



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M, Peggy study, Peggy studying Benedict study, Sort of fix-it, jewelry metaphors, more like explain-it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-29
Updated: 2016-07-29
Packaged: 2018-07-27 13:06:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7619260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradiamond/pseuds/paradiamond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Benedict, insight comes in moments. It comes in small drops instead of in waves, like it had with John. Peggy isn’t sure what to do with it, but she can’t deny that it exists anymore than she can deny the reality of her situation. It doesn't help that Benedict seems to mean none of it maliciously, making it all the more difficult to turn him into the beast she so wishes she could pretend he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Bear and the Maiden Fair

**Author's Note:**

> After doing some research on the real Peggy and Benedict, I was shocked by the portrayal of their relationship on the show. Obviously the show and reality are two different things, but I still felt compelled to write something for them.

They’re sitting in the garden with half a dozen of Peggy’s relatives and friends within hearing distance, as is proper. Benedict is by her side as she pretends to read a book, casting glances her way every few seconds while she pretends not to notice. She does a lot of pretending these days. 

Finally, he speaks. 

“I got you something. A present,” Benedict says, as if she didn’t know. She turns toward him expectantly and he ducks his head, smiling. “That is, if this is allowed.” 

It’s a frankly ridiculous concern coming from him, considering what they had already done in private, so Peggy takes it as the private joke it’s intended to be and smiles back. 

“I believe so.” 

Benedict’s smile widens into a grin that changes his entire face, still self conscious but now sincere. He hands her the small box she had noticed him playing with in his pockets for the past hour. Peggy takes it with grace and tries to prepare for every possibility, to make sure nothing shows in her face to ruin this. They’re still playing a game, even if he hasn’t realized it, and she needs to stay in control. 

It turns out to be a bracelet, and an ugly one at that. Thick banded and adorned with cheap gems that she knows he still can’t really afford. It’s a gaudy, horrid thing, but when she looks up she can see that he has no idea, so she smiles. 

“I love it.”

“Really?” he asks, and sounds so relieved and hopeful that she wants to mean it, even for a moment. 

“Of course,” Peggy says and slips it onto her wrist. It goes easily because it does not fit and hangs awkwardly on her wrist. Benedict smiles, visibly proud. 

“I picked it out myself.”

Peggy lifts her arm to the light and tries not to see the others looking. It seems she’ll be Peggy with the tacky bracelet now. “I can tell, it has your unique charm.” 

Benedict shakes his head. “No, it’s yours. Don’t you recognize the stone?” 

She tilts her head, and then her wrist, studying it. “I’m afraid-” 

“It’s jasper,” he says, as though this should be deeply meaningful to her. 

She smiles again, praying that it touches her eyes. “Oh? Well, it’s very nice.”

“It’s your birthstone.” 

Peggy stares at him, then looks back to the bracelet. “So it is.” 

Benedict relaxes, leaning back with a satisfied look on his face. “I had to go all the way across the city to-”

“You know my birthday?” Peggy interrupts, even though she knows she shouldn’t. Even though he did it to her. But he doesn’t seem to mind. 

“Of course,” Benedict reaches out and takes her hand, lifting it gently up to kiss the back of her hand. When he lowers it again, he doesn’t let go. “You’re the most beautiful woman in the world, and you’re mine. I would know everything about you if I could. I want to.” 

Peggy looks away. “You can’t _say_ that.”

Unexpectedly, at least to her, he laughs. “I just did.” 

She looks back and finds him just staring at her, expression open and fixed. He’s wearing his blue uniform, as he always does. Peggy has never seen him in anything else, with the obvious exception of seeing him in nothing at all. Somehow he seems more himself in it rather than out of it, though with John it had been the other way entirely. Curious, she tries to imagine Benedict in red, and fails. 

Clearly not yet comfortable with silence between them, Benedict launches into the story of the bracelet. How he found the right shop with the right jeweler, how he fought to get the best stones, the ones that shine in the light. Peggy tilts her wrist and sees that they do, though not very brightly. It seems slightly less awful now, though maybe she’s just getting used to it. 

“I should have had the sense to have been born in April, it would have been easier for you,” she says, and Benedict laughs, too loud and painfully genuine. People stare at them from across the lawn.

Benedict doesn’t seem to notice. “You will have diamonds from me yet, I’m sure of it.” 

She smiles, with a lifetime of lady’s courtesy to make it the right smile. “Oh?” 

“Yes,” Benedict answers with perfect confidence, and punctuates it with a nod. Peggy bites the inside of her cheek, but he sees her smiling anyway. 

“What? You don’t believe me?” he asks, and seems to genuinely want to know the answer, as he always does. It’s rare that Peggy can allow her mind to wander when they are together, since Benedict pays such close attention. 

It’s strange, he so obviously wants to talk to her, which she hadn’t thought to expect. Over time she had come to realize how much her letters had meant to him, how infrequently those around him ask him what he thinks and feels. They see him as a weapon just as so many see her as a doll. Now that he has her ear, he talks about his ambitions, his convictions, and wants to hear her responses to every point. His attention, in this and in all other matters, is overwhelming. 

She discreetly lays her hand near his, and sees to it that he notices. “Of course I do.” She lies. 

***

Benedict drags her close as soon as they’re alone enough to not get caught, his hands pulling at her waist and so big they almost go all the way around. 

“Good evening,” he says, leaning down into her space. 

Peggy smiles back. “Good-”

He cuts her off with a kiss, hands sliding up from her waist to her back to her neck, always pulling and gripping tighter. They’re of such disparate heights that he has to bend at the waist, and she feels obliged to rise up onto her toes to meet him partway. Benedict runs his tongue along the seam of her lips, as though asking for an invitation. Peggy sighs and allows him in, opening her mouth to his advance. He presses her back against the wall in his eagerness, sliding his tongue against hers. It feels good, she can’t deny that. Even if it makes her feel like the traitor she’s turning him into. 

Soon, he’s pulling away, grinning. Peggy smiles up at him, wondering what he’s done to her hair and how long it will take to repair the damage. 

Benedict bends down again and presses his forehead against hers. “I’m glad to have you alone.” 

“Me too,” Peggy says, softly. He leans away, taking her hand and pulling her farther into the house. They go up the stairs, towards his bedroom. In any other context, she would be annoyed at his presumption, not to mention his rather unceremonious demeanor, but they really don’t have all that much time. 

“Although,” he says, closing the door behind him. “I have to say I’m starting to enjoy the public face of our relationship, even if it is a falsehood.” 

Peggy sits down on the bed and frowns, genuinely surprised. “I always thought that the pretense frustrated you.” 

“It does,” Benedict says, preoccupied by getting down on his knees to slide one of her stockings down and off her foot. Peggy shifts to give him the other, but he’s made himself busy sliding his hand up her thigh, followed by his mouth, lips softly skimming against her sensitive skin. She shivers, but she still wants her answer. 

“Then why?” 

Benedict glances up, pupils blown wide and black. “What? Oh, yes.” He reaches over and slides the other stocking off efficiently, throwing it off the side so he can crawl up onto the bed with her, bracketing her body with his. 

“I dislike the lying, but it is enthralling, sitting there in front of your minders, in front of the town even, knowing that I’ll be here later,” he says, and leans down to press a kiss to her collarbone, hands working at the front clasps of her dress, pulling it open to expose the tops of her breasts. “And here.” 

“I see,” Peggy says, catching her breath a little when he pulls away to continue undoing her dress. She had offered many times to do it herself, but he always declines. He tugs the garment down and she lifts her hips and shimmies to help. “I think I can see the appeal.” 

Benedict hums and gently rolls her onto her side, pressing a kiss to the juncture between her shoulder blades before setting to work at undoing her underthings. Peggy shivers. When he’s done, he reaches for her bracelet but she shakes her head. “Leave it.” 

His eyebrows shoot up and a sly smile curls his face. “Alright.” 

Regretting the statement already, Peggy puts a hand on the back of his neck and pulls him down for a kiss to shut him up. Of course it works, distracting him immediately and encouraging him to move, to touch. His hands slide from her breasts to her ribs to her hips, never stopping. He’s a man of motion, always searching, never satisfied with any one thing. He breaks away from their kiss and moves down to her neck, pressing lightly so as not to mark her like he had in the past, an action she had made sure he had come to fiercely regret. He had since learned to channel his energy elsewhere, such as her breasts, such as her sex. 

Peggy gasps as his hooks an arm around her leg, pulling it out to open her wider for him. She looks away, anywhere but down as he repeatedly runs his tongue along her, dipping inside with every few strokes. Her legs start to shake when he replaces it with his fingers, drawing them deeper than he could reach before. Against her better judgement, she whines and turns her face to the side. It’s clear that he’s familiar with a woman’s body, that he was married to another before. She’s grateful that at the very least, she didn’t have to be his teacher on top of everything else. 

Something shifts in his touch, and she looks down to see him staring back at her. She breathes out harshly and reaches down, pulling him up. “Come here.” 

Benedict does as he’s told, crawling up her body with a rapturous expression. When he enters her, Peggy sighs and wraps her legs around his waist, holding him in place. He groans and reaches out to hold her hand. No, she realizes, her wrist where the bracelet lies. 

From that point, Peggy allows herself time to stop thinking, to lose herself in sensation. Things had changed since the first time they had done this, with Benedict no longer over eager and selfish in his touch. Whatever he lacks in skill he makes up for in pure enthusiasm, and he talks, keeping up a steady stream of praise that normally would have had her rolling her eyes, but he’s so sincere in person. He tries so hard to please her that it should be annoying, but there’s a part of her that craves it. 

That kind of undivided attention is difficult to resist, even for a woman in love with another man. 

At the thought of John, Peggy closes her eyes. The sting of betrayal had eased some since the first time, but it still pains her, and even more so because she can’t find it in her heart to blame Benedict, not really. Bitterness at his apparent inability to see the truth in front of his eyes notwithstanding, she knows that he isn’t really at fault, which only makes it worse. 

As far as Benedict is aware he has fallen into the perfect secret romance, complete with late night trysts and sure to end in a happy marriage. Peggy packaged herself as the ideal, and now he had opened her up, accepting the gift without questioning its origin. Frustrating, but to be expected. One does not lay a trap and then get angry at the beast that falls into it. 

When she opens her eyes again, she finds Benedict watching her. 

He smiles reflexively when he meets her eyes. “Still awake? You can sleep if you’d like, I won’t let the time get away from you.” 

Peggy shakes her head and sits up, casting a glance at the clock in the corner. They still have some time, though she isn’t sure how to feel about that. “Thank you, but I’m not all the tired.”

“No?” Benedict rumbles, a laugh building in his chest. “I can fix that.” 

She rolls her eyes, forgetting herself for a moment before reality comes crawling back. Luckily he doesn’t seem to mind, or notice, his attention having fallen back to her bracelet again. She shakes her wrist lightly. “You like my present even more than I do.” 

He shakes his head. “Probably. I like seeing it on you.” 

“Whereas you prefer to see the rest of my clothes on the floor,” she teases, pushing at her chemise with her foot until it falls off the bed. Benedict doesn’t laugh again, which is strange.

“Benedict?”

He refocuses on her face, his mind having clearly been very far away. “Would you like to meet my children?” 

Peggy blinks, caught totally off guard. “Oh. I-”

“You don’t have to, of course,” he continues, visibly nervous. “But if you would like to, I’m sure they would be- well I’m sure they would love to meet you.” 

Peggy smiles reflexively, desperately searching through her memories of both their conversations and their correspondence for something, anything, about the subject of his children with little success. All she can summon up is the number, three, but nothing more. She had entirely forgotten about their very existence.

Benedict is still staring at her wide eyes, and she realizes that she had been silent for far too long. “I’d love to.” 

He visibly relaxes. “Oh.”

Peggy lays back down, propping herself up on his chest. He looks down at her, eyes a little too wide., but rapidly warming again “Tell me about them.” 

With Benedict, insight comes in moments. It comes in small drops instead of in waves, like it had with John. Peggy isn’t sure what to do with it, but she can’t deny that it exists anymore than she can deny the reality of her situation. It doesn't help that Benedict seems to mean none of it maliciously, making it all the more difficult to turn him into the beast she so wishes she could pretend he was. 

Peggy picks at her bracelet as he talks, a little bent from where he had grabbed it. As he tells her about his children and his hopes for their future, about what kind of example he wants to set for them, about how he hopes that she will like them, she finds herself worried. Despite what John says, Benedict will make a terrible spy. There’s nothing for it. 

He wears his heart on his sleeve, and apparently it belongs to her.


End file.
